Vault Payments

This video provides an in-depth demonstration of Veeva Vault Payments, a solution designed to streamline and enhance the accuracy of study budgeting and site payment processes for sponsors and Contract Research Organizations (CROs). The core purpose of the system is to provide a unified, transparent view for managing financial obligations related to clinical trials, ensuring faster and more accurate payments to research sites while offering comprehensive financial visibility to all study partners. The presentation establishes that Vault Payments operates within the broader Vault Clinical environment, leveraging existing study definitions—including visit procedures and site fee definitions—to automate payment tracking.

The progression of the system begins with defining the study budget, allowing users to identify categories and planned financial amounts at the study, country, and site levels. A crucial step is the creation of Fee Schedule Templates, which can be defined globally or per country (e.g., for the United Kingdom). These templates list all trackable items, such as visit procedures and non-subject-related site fees (like startup fees), along with their corresponding amounts. Once approved, these templates prevent further editing, ensuring financial control. The system also tracks study-level payable items, which include payments to external vendors like Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) or central labs, managing both the planned amounts and related payment requests.

At the site level (e.g., UK 103), the system allows for the definition of related organizations, which is essential for tracking minimum payment thresholds and setting up complex split payment arrangements. While the site inherits the country-level fee schedule template, Vault Payments offers flexibility to manage site-specific negotiated fees—allowing for deviations from the standard template on a site-by-site basis. Furthermore, specific payment rules can be defined for individual items, adding flexibility to how payments are processed. A key automated feature is the generation of payable items directly from subject visit and other related data available within Vault Clinical. Users can then review these items, flag any that should be excluded, and generate comprehensive payment requests. These requests serve as an integration point with external Accounts Payable (AP) systems, facilitating the final payment processing. Data from the AP system, such as check numbers and dates, can be brought back into Vault Clinical for complete visibility. Finally, the system generates a data-driven payment letter, which is a finalized, approved document distributed to sites via Site Connect, detailing the payable items included in the request. The entire process is supported by real-time dashboards and reports, offering views on payment activity trends and real-time study budget tracking (planned vs. spent).

Key Takeaways: • Unified Financial Visibility: Vault Payments centralizes study budgeting and site payment data within Vault Clinical, providing a single source of truth for sponsors, CROs, and sites, which drastically reduces manual reconciliation efforts and improves transparency. • Automated Payable Generation: The system leverages existing clinical data (subject visits, procedures) to automatically generate payable items, significantly reducing the administrative burden and potential for human error associated with manual data entry. • Granular Budget Definition: Users can define and track study budgets at multiple levels—study, country, and site—allowing for precise financial planning and monitoring against planned amounts throughout the duration of the trial. • Flexible Fee Schedule Management: While templates ensure standardization (e.g., country-level fee schedules), the system supports site-by-site negotiation, enabling users to manage unique, negotiated fees for specific procedures without compromising the overall system structure. • Support for Complex Payments: Vault Payments addresses the complexity of clinical trial finance by allowing the definition of organizations related to a site, facilitating the tracking of minimum payment thresholds and the management of split payments among different entities at the site. • Comprehensive Payment Request Workflow: Payment requests consolidate all ready payable items, allow for manual adjustments (adding/removing items in bulk or individually), and enable the association of supporting documents, such as site invoices, creating a complete audit trail. • Integration with Accounts Payable (AP): The payment request serves as a critical integration point, allowing seamless data transfer to external AP systems for final processing, while also enabling the return of finalized payment data (e.g., check number, date) back into Vault Clinical for financial closure. • Data-Driven Communication: The system automates the generation of compliant, data-driven payment letters based on pre-defined templates, ensuring sites receive accurate, professional documentation detailing the payment request contents. • Vendor Payment Tracking: Beyond site payments, the system tracks study-level payable items related to external vendors (e.g., IRBs, central labs), ensuring all financial obligations associated with the study are managed within the same unified platform. • Real-Time Business Intelligence: Dashboards and reports provide real-time insights into payment activity, allowing study teams to track trends (e.g., payable items paid by week) and monitor the study budget status (planned vs. spent) for proactive financial management.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• Veeva Vault Payments
• Veeva Vault Clinical
• Veeva Site Connect
• External Accounts Payable (AP) Systems (Integration Point)

Key Concepts:

• Fee Schedule Templates: Pre-defined, standardized lists of procedures, visits, and site fees with corresponding amounts, used to govern payments across a study or country.
• Payable Items: Financial obligations automatically generated based on clinical activities (like subject visits) or manually entered items (like startup fees or vendor invoices) that are ready for payment processing.
• Split Payments: The ability to distribute a single site payment among multiple organizations or entities associated with that study site.
• Payment Letter: A data-driven document generated by the system detailing the payable items included in a specific payment request, used for communication and distribution to the study site.